Heisenberg Switch (part 1)

Luke was late for his shift. He’d forgotten to take out the trash the evening before so he ended up chasing the garbage truck this morning, only to be told the bag of empty bottles and beer cans he’d hoisted all the way to there was not due until the next day. Damn the differentiated garbage collection and the useless recycling fad. He’d read somewhere that only about ten percent of the stuff ever really got recycled.

This was the first time he was late, and the hospital policy was to let the first slight go unpunished. However he was now one mere slip away from the dreaded Reprimand. Nurses with two reprimands would get crappy shifts, with horrible hours, meaning a higher risk of not being on time, and from then on it would be a downwards spiral into Reprimand Hell.

He’d tossed the bag into his back yard, where he heard it land with the sound of crashing glass, and rushed to work. When he got back home in the late afternoon, he was too tired to think about it. He did think about it a few hours later, when it was getting dark. “Ah shit, glass is due tomorrow!” he suddenly groaned.

Grabbing a coat he went out back, where he discovered the bag had ruptured, scattering its contents all around. It looked like some form of modern art which, Luke was sure, any critic would be able to glance at and interpret it, quite correctly, as a futuristic Ode to Stupidity.

He grabbed a new bag, some gloves to protect his hands from the broken glass, and started picking up the mess. He came across what looked like a pamphlet at a certain point, and tossed it aside. “Paper on Mondays”, he mumbled. After dropping the bag in the container out front, he came back to deal with the rogue piece of paper. He took it inside and was about to crumple it and toss it into the paper bin when the bright lettering caught his attention.

“Bob’s Garbage Collection for People” it said in bright, friendly letters.

Apart from the unusual wording, the service promised to collect any material the customer wished to throw away, and guaranteed 100% recycling. Also, there would be no need to carry any bags out to the bin in the street, as the collection would be “on site”. On top of that, the service was free for the first year.

Without thinking twice, Luke signed the little opt-in form at the bottom of the pamphlet, and then realized that nowhere on the paper did it say where to send it. Not an e-mail, not a phone number.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Luke muttered to himself. He crumpled the worthless pamphlet, tossed it in the bin, and did not dedicate further thought to the little startup which had thrown a spanner in its own campaign with bad design.

The next morning, he was up and ready. He even saluted the garbage collection truck when he came across it a few blocks away. The glass situation had been dealt with. Things were back in order.

Today was Friday. It was also Sandra’s turn, which is probably why he felt all buoyant. He liked her, despite the fact that he’d heard her once referring to him as “Mr. Compulsive”. She probably didn’t mean it in a bad sense. Anyway, he almost wished he were compulsive. He wouldn’t have gotten the wrong garbage type the day before. He just got a bit fixated, that’s all. He probably could have avoided being late by just putting the bag to the side and taking it out the following week. But bags hanging around the house were wrong. Just wrong. Silly fixation, he knew it. At least he was smart enough not to go on about it with his colleagues.

“Hello Sandra,” he said as he stopped by the desk to get the morning lists.

“Hi Luke. How’s your day coming along?”

“Oh, fine. Won’t be late again you know, now that I’ve picked up all the glass.”

“Uh…yeah, that’s good to know.”

Idiot.

He got back home as usual, but this time, before going into couch-slouch mode, he told himself he should check the back yard for any leftover pieces of glass while there was still light.

He opened the door and was greeted by a little fanfare.

“Congratulations!” a colorful LCD screen said. It seemed to be held mid-air by two drones. Below it, in the middle of the yard, small, gunmetal blue pole stood on an elevated metal platform of the same color. It had a ring of light around the tip which glowed green. It looked like a cross between a traffic light and Robocop.

The screen changed. “Please walk to the area of your green space where you wish to place the Collector.”

“Ah, yes, place the collector,” Luke repeated mechanically. “I’m sorry, what is this?”

The screen went black for a second, then it flashed again. “Bob’s Garbage Collection for People! Congratulations!” The fanfare played again.

“Oh, that thing!” Luke was genuinely surprised. “How did you…nevermind. So happy you’re here.” He walked over to a corner of his yard. The drones rotated the screen so it continued to face him. “Here,” he said.

The entire platform rose by a couple of inches and started moving towards him. He quickly got out of the way and put his head to ground level to see if it too could levitate like the screen. Instead, he saw hundreds of little mechanical feet.

“And all of this is free?” he chuckled to himself.

The screen flashed back at him. “Affirmative. It was agreed that no transactions would take place for the first year. All material is to be collected for free.”

Well, this customer service was next-level, that’s for sure.

“Collector installed. Now fully functional. Enjoy,” the screen informed him and began to rise.

“Wait! What materials? On which days?”

The screen paused for a while, then came down, patiently. “Any material. Any day.”

“…Even mixed?”

“Affirmative.”

“But how does it work?”

Another short pause. “You put things you don’t need on the platform. We take them away,” came the answer.

“Hmm, that so. That so…” Luke put his hands to his sides, pretending a high-level conversation had just taken place. “Very well. Thank you.”

Without further messages, the screen was lifted by the drones and disappeared into the clouds.

Paper was due on Monday, so Luke was currently out of any one bag which would be full enough to be eligible, but the screen said it would collect any material so Luke grabbed all the half-full bins of paper, plastic and other stuff, and was able to produce one decently sized load.

He approached the collector platform and deposited the bag on it. The ring on top of the pole turned red.

Luke waited a little, expecting some other drone to come and lift the bag away or something like that, but it never happened.

He shrugged and went back inside. A few minutes later he ran back outside, holding a small bag he’d forgotten under the sink.

The light was green, the platform was clear.

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